In a perfect world, yes. In this case, not a chance. It's true the refs SHOULD be a non-factor, but almost noone in the hockey world believes that of the finals this year. Biased or just plain bad, there is no denying the refs were a major factor in the series and were very close to being an even bigger one.

If not for a spectacular play by Osgood the Pens tie it up and possibly win in overtime and get a chance at taking the series in game seven. All this because the refs handed them a six on four and then refused to take it away by not calling three blatant penalties. The Datsyuk trip, the stick slashed of of Lilja's hands, and his stick getting swept away once it is loose. All those calls are automatic if the officiating is even halfassed. So it's ok to make calls with 90 seconds left in the game if they're in the Pens favor, but not with 20 seconds in the game if it goes against them? Wtf kind of standard is that? Games have been won and lost with less than 5 seconds on the clock so their is absolutely no good time to let obvious penalties go uncalled because of time left in the game.

You can look back at this and say so what the Wings won anyway. I'm fine with that if that's your opinion. But to say that the officiating was fine and dandy just because the matchup was lopsided enough for the Wings to overcome the officiating is crazy in my book. Bad is bad, and the officiating, for whatever reason, was the worst that I and a great number of other long time hockey fans have ever seen throughout a series.

Now that so many commentators, writers, and others around hockey have come out and said they believe the officiating stunk, it's no longer valid to say that the complaints are just coming from a bunch of Red Wing homers.

I'm not usually one to complain about the officials either, but if you didn't see the obvious bias in this series, you weren't watching.